Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora

Content Warning: The section of the guide discusses slavery and abuse.

In the 15th century, Europeans set up trading posts, known then as “factories,” on the west coast of Africa and named the area the Gold Coast (now modern-day Ghana) after the gold found there. These factories were essentially areas where foreign merchants could trade with local people; they were precursors to European colonial expansion in Africa. One company of English merchants was called the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading into Africa, and its goal was to trade in gold. Political rivalry and eventually war between the English and the Dutch meant the company experienced fierce trading competition and got into debt. It was renamed in 1672 as the Royal African Company and set up a more violent system in its trading post by building forts and exercising military rule. Because King Charles II’s brother, the Duke of York, oversaw the company, it was granted a monopoly on English trade in Africa.

As Smallwood outlines in Saltwater Slavery, the Royal African Company initially traded European goods and enslaved people trafficked from elsewhere for gold or ivory, but it became clear by the late 17th century that trafficking African people across the Atlantic and selling them into enslavement would be a more profitable endeavor.